COVID-19 Impacts Digital Ad Spend, Revenue, Social Media Publishing

By Mark Eting

Bullseye Strategy Special Correspondent

While it may continue to feel like the longest month of March in history, May has finally arrived. With its arrival, a lot of new data over the last two months is shedding light on how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting digital marketing.

New Research: Impact of COVID-19 on Ad Spend and Revenue

Trends are showing that digital ad spends abruptly slowed in response to the pandemic. Recently, they’ve started to bounce back slightly. Brands and marketers are now forced to re-forecast both spend and revenue through Q2.

Premium publishing is seeing a slight rise recently as well, but traditional media channels have continued to be the hardest hit sector.

Most people believe the impact will affect the immediate term, (through June), with digital faring better than other channels.

Sprout Social Revises “Best Times To Publish” Based on COVID-19 Data

Sprout Social, the social media management platform, published their guide for the best times to post for reach and engagement on each platform about a month ago. That information is largely now moot since Covid-19 has most people at home.

For example, on both Instagram and Facebook, the optimal days of the week have expanded from the two best days to three or four. In some instances, the one-best hour to post has expanded to several different hours that are best.

Both Twitter and LinkedIn had changed as well, including earlier times of day to post, and additional days that are noteworthy for publishing content.

Instagram Adding New Fonts, Font Background Effects for Stories

While the possibility of additional fonts for Instagram isn’t necessarily the most important digital news of the week, it is worth noting for brands, digital marketers, and content creators. There has been very few font options available within the Stories publisher (modern, neon, typewriter, strong and classic), but that may change soon.

Instagram has announced (via Twitter) that they’re testing additional font styles and font backgrounds with a small audience.

Be sure to check your Instagram account and see if you’re one of them!